LOS ANGELES JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 2025 PREVIEW
This week, the annual Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival will be celebrating their twentieth year! I’m proud to say that I’ve attended about a quarter of them, ever since I’ve been aware of this worthwhile event. I wish I had known about it sooner, so lest you be left out, I’m giving you the lowdown on it in advance.
The LAJFF info.
The line-up for this year’s Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival looks fabulous. And after recently seeing the stage musical, Parade, (which tells the tragic story of a Jewish man being wrongly charged, convicted, and lynched for a murder he did not commit,) I’m especially looking forward to celebrating my Jewish heritage at this very meaningful and entertaining festival which begins this Thursday night, June 26th, with a Gala Opening at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills. No matter your own heritage, there’s something here for everyone. (All the details are on their website at the bottom of this preview.)
The Opening Night Gala will feature the LA premiere of Midas Man, which tells the story of the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, who was a complex man, especially for those times. And this will be a special date on which to see this tale because the day before is the official Beatles Day, (which I actually know about, because I was a major Beatles fan back in the day! Mr. X has even given me permission to still marry Paul McCartney, as I wanted to do when I was little, if the opportunity ever arises.)
Midas Man.
The movie will be introduced by cast member, Jay Leno, (in a surprise role as—wait for it—the legend, Ed Sullivan!) He’ll also be one of the post-screening speakers. I’m expecting that to be a hoot!
If you can’t make it to the opening night, you’ll have one more chance to see Midas Man this weekend in Encino.
Just part of the snack table from last year. Photo by Karen Salkin.
Thursday’s Gala reception and red carpet will be held in the Saban’s spacious lobby, which is perfect for the fun meeting and greeting and mingling. They’ll even have an “Abbey Road” for us to walk. I can’t wait to see how that works. And the organizers always surprise us with something different in the way of pre-screening refreshments every year. I’m not sure what we’ll find this time, but I have a feeling that a dessert buffet is in the works. We’ll all find-out together.
The rest of the LA Jewish Film Festival takes place over the next few days and nights of the week-end, in several venues all over town. You can see the entire roster of offerings or just choose whichever one(s) you like.
The festival is made-up of a half dozen films, plus one evening of shorts, each pertaining somewhat to the Jewish experience. Every one of them looks interesting, but these are the two I’m looking the most forward to; both are documentaries, but very different from each other:
The Charles Grodin doc.
Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause—With Mr. X and me being fans of Charles Grodin, (as a matter of fact, Mr. X did his first film with Charles, and told me that he was nice,) I don’t want to miss this documentary about his life and career. (He grew-up an Orthodox Jew, which I just learned about this very second! Thanks, LAJFF, for giving me new knowledge!) My first memory of Charles is seeing him in The Heartbreak Kid, which was directed by comedy icon Elaine May, who is one of the celebs featured in this film. Some others are Robert De Niro, Steve Martin, Carol Burnett, Martin Short, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and Alan Arkin. As the Festival’s website tells us, Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause celebrates not only his show biz career, but also his “remarkable, decades-long activism and successful fight to get wrongly convicted people—most of whom were mothers of color with young children—out of prison,” which I had no idea about! I have a feeling few of us did.
The fascinating Jerry Lewis doc.
From Darkness to Light—This will be the LA Premiere of this documentary, which pertains to Jerry Lewis, and I’m anticipating that it will be fascinating. When I learned it would be in the Festival, I showed the title to Mr. X, thinking he might like to be entertained by Jerry Lewis, (my grandmother’s favorite comedian.) But my beau set me straight on the very serious topic of this documentary, which I’ve now done lots of research on, and let me say this about it—OMG! It’s a doc about the making of Jerry Lewis’ unfinished and never-released film, The Day the Clown Cried, which is a fictional tale of a non-Jewish clown in the Holocaust! Now I really want to see this film, From Darkness to Light, because I have to know every detail about what could have been in Lewis’ mind to make that crazy drama. (At least it wasn’t a comedy!) This documentary is the closest we’re going to get to discovering the secrets of it.
I hope to see everyone at the Festival, especially the Opening Night Gala, no matter your ethnic persuasion. You just have to be a movie aficionado, which includes just about everyone in our Hollywood-centric town!
For the LAJFF schedule, and all the info on the films and special events, just click here: www.lajfilmfest.org.
